Thursday, December 07, 2006

[Those of you who have been coming here for a while will recognize this piece. It is from last year on approximately the same date. As a matter of fact, I should probably give you a general warning: the longer you come here, the more often you'll find out just how lazy a bugger I am. As long as nobody shoots me or anything, I'll just keep reprinting the same stuff, over and over.

(This goes for the "new" pieces, too. I'll recycle jokes enough times to get an award from The Sierra Club. However, I digress.)

Be that as it may - and it usually is - here is my heartfelt plea, from last year, for fruitcake clemency.]

A CONFESSION

I am about to make an extremely shocking admission, even for a reprobate like me. You should probably be sitting down. You might even wish to take a medicinal belt beforehand, so that the enormity of this truth I'm about to tell you doesn't send you into immediate cardiac arrest.

Are you ready? OK, here goes.

I love fruitcake.

There, I said it. It's not something that very many people would admit to these days, what with the unabashed fruitcake bashing that goes on every Christmas season, but I've never been very reticent about bringing up my peculiarities, so there it is. Little fluorescent green pieces of unidentified fruit? Love 'em. Cake with the approximate equal weight to lead? Bring it on! Cherries of a red hue unfound in any part or portion of nature? I plain cannot get enough.

I realize this makes me one of an extremely tiny minority these days. Most folks seem to have no better use for fruitcakes than to launch them with catapults or other such desecrations. At best, they are used as doorstops or perhaps something with which to whack an intruder over the head.

I, on the other hand, like to eat them.

Say what you will about my tastes, or lack thereof, I just love fruitcake and it pains me every time somebody makes the blanket assertion that nobody eats them. Saying something like that makes it just that much harder for me to find one when I want one, and makes it damned near impossible to get one as a present (which I very much appreciate, by the way.) It seems that almost nobody is willing to risk incurring the wrath of the snarky jokesters who have made "fruitcake" some sort of holiday swear word.

MY WIFE used to make a really great fruitcake, but she hasn't for a few years now. This is because she lost her recipe. Oh, the tears I've shed! That was my best shot at getting fruitcake for Christmas, without having to actually buy one. My sister-in-law gave me one a couple of years ago and that was nice.

Look, if you have fruitcake that you want to get rid of, please don't hurl it into space or relegate it to anonymous doorstop duty. Send it to ME. I'd love to give it a nice home (in my belly) and I will sing your praises should you send me one. Here's an address, and you can feel free to forward it:

[2006 addendum: I have already received one fruitcake this holiday season. It came from my Uncle Jim - which, by the way, sounds like the title of a really campy horror flick. However, as delicious as it looks, it will not be enough. More! I need more fruitcakes! Send them, NOW! And I thank you.)

It came from my Uncle Jim actually is a genuine real-life horror. I say this becule you have not actually tasted it yet and then looked in the mirror. By the way don't let YOUR WIFE eat any, if you truly love her.

Whenever I hear anything about fruitcakes, I think of the "Married With Children" episode when the Bundys give Marcy and Steve a fruitcake for Christmas, and Marcy says, "How nice. A fruitcake. With a footprint in it." Never ceases to crack me up.

I haven't seen a fruitcake in my mail for years, makes me wonder if someone finally ate the damned thing instead of just passing it along like it had been for centuries. Or, I suppose, it may have found it's way to "Suldog's Home For Wayward Fruitcakes." One can only hope.

WOW, while I've personally known many a fruitcake - I've never known anyone who's actually eaten one! ;)

What does it taste like? I'm mortified just by the jellied appearance of the candies - that always sort of made my stomach flip. But then again - I dont' care for mincemeat pie either. So now I'm wondering if this tastes like mincemeat but with brighter candy? Anything with raisins turns me off...but now you've really got me thinking.

Hmmmmm... Rebecca asks a very good question. However, how does one describe heaven adequately? I'll try.

(I will here be describing a great fruitcake. There are less-than-great ones. I like all of them. However, if you've never had one before, I feel it is imperative that you start with a great one.)

The cake itself is dense. You should actually have a somewhat hard time cutting it with a side of a fork; it should offer firm resistance.

The fruits are varied. That is, it is up to the person making the cake to decide what goes into it. I have had fruitcakes with apricots, cherries, figs, dates, candied orange peel, citron, pineapple, and just about any fruit you can imagine, in any mixture. Unfortunately for Rebecca, raisins are pretty much a given. However, you could order one custom made at a local bakery, I suppose. Check the label for ingredients; maybe you'l get lucky.

They often contain nuts, too. Walnuts are the most often included.

A really good fruitcake is saturated with brandy or a liquer of some sort. Hic! Actually, most of the alcohol evaporates over time, leaving the taste but not the buzz.

Spices include nutmeg, allspice, cloves, mace, cinnamon.

It should be moist, but not wet. The crumb should easily cling to your fork when pressed.

There are many variations - lighter cakes, non-alcoholic cakes, "white" fruitcakes, steamed fruitcake, ice-box fruitcake - but the one I've just described is baked, then drizzled with bourbon or brandy every 3 or 4 days for a couple of weeks before it is aged and ready.

I'd suggest just entering "fruitcake recipes" into Google to get an even better idea.

A great one will cost anywhere from $15 to $50. It will NOT be sitting on a supermarket shelf, in all probability. It will most definitely not be made by Hostess.

I am not a Fruitcake Fanatic, but I do like the occasional slice when I get a chance. We used to have a relative that sent one to my parent's house faithfully every year. However, time marches on, and it's been several years since I have partaken of the Fruitcake Flavors. But I'm sure I'll get one sent to me eventually.

This here's Isabelle from over at Mondo Fruitcake. Bless you for loving fruitcake and proclaiming it, loud and proud. How about getting not one, but 7 fruitcakes? The remains of each one I've reviewed now lay dismembered in my freezer. This was the first time in a lifetime when my mom sent me a fruitcake and I was a bit disappointed--that's what happens when you've been eating them since July!

Hey Suldog, I'm giving you a shout out in my blog, that way any uneaten fruitcake won't languish in a garbage can but will find safe haven with you. My family is making fast work of my frozen fruitcake collection, but if there are any remainders, I'll send them your way!!

I have to ask this, because I didn't see it addressed on the page of comments -- What is your FAVORITE fruitcake? (I'm doing another taste-test at my house this Christmas, following recommendations from Isabelle's "Mondo Fruitcake" site). Would you care to recommend any particular fruitcakes? -- Thanks! -- and Merry Christmas, from sunny San Diego! :o)

I am, among other things...

My actual name is Jim Sullivan, but I'll answer to Jim, Jimmy, Sully, Suldog, Laroooooo, or Your Prescription Is Ready. Despite all evidence to the contrary found within these pages, I am a professional writer.